Murderer who killed three in botched burglary and raped girl, 13, covered his house with leaves in bizarre obsession

Murderer: Matthew Hoffman, shown here in court last month, has a bizarre obsession with leaves and tree it has been revealed

A murderer who killed two women and an 11-year-old boy before kidnapping and raping a girl,13, after a botched burglary attempt, has been found to have a bizarre obsession with leaves.

Authorities have released images of Matthew Hoffman's house and they reveal that the 30-year-old stuffed his living room with leaves and lined his bathroom with more than 100 bags of leaves.

In addition, the unemployed tree-surgeon's bed - where the teenager was raped - was made from leaves and his freezer contained dead squirrels.

Hoffman, who stabbed his victims to
death on November 9, is currently serving a life sentence for the three
murders in Ohio County - he had hidden the bodies high in hollow trees
but told the police where he had hidden them in a bid to escape Death
Row.

And two police officers from Mount
Vernon, Ohio, who were investigating the whereabouts of the missing
trio, first entered Hoffman's home in November last year to discover the
mounds of leaves.

By that stage Hoffman had murdered
and dismembered Tina Hermann, her
son Kody and Mrs Hermann's neighbour Stephanie Sprang, and the
piles were so high that the officers feared that corpses might have been
buried underneath them.

Detective Craig Feeney told the
Columbus Dispatch: 'So much runs through your mind: "What if someone is
hiding under that pile?" Or in this case, I thought, "Is that where he's
hiding the bodies?'''

Mrs Hermann's 13-year-old daughter was
discovered in Hoffman's basement, with her hands and feet bound - she
had been confined to a makeshift bed of leaves.

Obsessed: Pictures of the 30-year-old unemployed tree surgeon's house showed piles of leaves - psychologists say that it shows that Hoffman was mentally disturbed

Bizarre: Hoffman's bathroom - shown here - is lined with more than 100 bags of leaves, and he has a freezer that contained two dead squirrels

During police questioning Hoffman confessed to investigators that he had made the bed of leaves and covered it with blankets and that the rape victim 'liked that bed, it was extremely comfy and I wanted to sleep on it'.

Forensic psychologists have suggested that the obsession with leaves and trees showed that Hoffman was unhinged and mentally disturbed.

'If trees gave him comfort at all and
were familiar at all, that would explain why he would put the bodies in
the tree,' said Dr James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, who has
written five books about serial killers, told ABC News.

Mentally deluded: Hoffman's bed, was made with leaves

Dr N.G.
Berrill, director of New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic
Behavioral Science, agreed and said to ABC News: 'It certainly suggests that he is
likely to be mentally ill, mentally ill as compared to other killers who
show up in the news like serial killers or psychopaths.

'Serial killers, from a professional
point of view, they are not mentally ill. They have character
disturbances, but they know what they're doing is wrong. They take too
much pleasure, too much gratification to stop.

'It
would take talking to him to find out what [stockpiling leaves] means.
[Hoffman's delusions are] very elaborate delusions related to trees,
what trees produce, being in and around on trees, putting people in
trees.'

Survivor and victim: The teenage girl was discovered bound and
gagged in a Mount Vernon basement. Tina Herrmann's dismembered body was found in the hollow of a
tree

Killed: The bodies of Kody Maynard, 10, and 41-year-old family friend and neighbour Stephanie Sprang were found wrapped in garbage bags

A neighbour, Henderson Butcher, said that there were signs that Hoffman was attracted to trees and leaves.

'He used to play around the trees
around there a lot, throw ropes in trees and had like a hammock on
there,' Butcher was quotes as saying in ABC News.

Another neighbour, Kara Fowler, said: 'He would actually kill the squirrels and eat them - he was killing the squirrels because he doesn't grocery shop.'

Grisly discovery: The beech tree in the Kokosing Lake Animal Preserve shows the square cut that police made to find the bodies

Hollow tree: Police suggest that the killer used a harness to raise the bodies to a hole at the top of the tree and dump them inside

John Thatcher, the Knox County Prosecutor, said he believed that the hundreds of bags of leaves found in Hoffman's house were unconnected to the murders.

Earlier this week Hoffman made a chilling confession detailing how a planned break-in turned into every American family’s nightmare.

He said he randomly targetted the isolated Know County split level house where Mrs Herrmann lived with her two children and spent the night in a sleeping bag in the woods across the street.

Hideout: Hoffman slept rough the night before the frenzied attack and watched Tina Herrmann's house, pictured, before attempting to burgle it

Prisoner: Police gather evidence from Hoffmann's House in Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he held the 13-year-old girl captive in his basement, repeatedly raping her, for four days

At about 9am on November 9 last year, he slipped into the house through an open garage door after watching Mrs Herrmann drive off in her car.

He insisted he never planned to hurt anyone when he sneaked into a
suburban home at breakfast time looking for valuables to steal.

But
before the day was over, the ex-convict had brutally
murdered a 32-year-old mother, her eleven-year-old son and a 41-year-old
woman neighbour at the house in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

After
the bloodbath he hid the bodies – as well as the family’s pet dog that
he also stabbed – in a hollowed out tree in a nearby park.

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Murderer who killed three in botched burglary and raped girl, 13, had bizarre obsession with leaves